Fire Burns Bread
by JaceandJasper
Summary: Because they're Peeta and Katniss. The Boy With the Bread and the Girl on Fire. And even though fire burns bread, in the end the bread is still edible. And the fire eventually burns out.


**Okay, second Hunger Games fanfic in one night. Crazy, right? Never written it before and I've written two in one night!**

**Gah, I just love Peeta and Katniss too much.**

**Don't worry, I'm still working on What Happens With Pennsylvania Parents. Inspiration struck, though, and I had to go with it.**

**THEIR JUST TOO DAMN CUTE.**

**And this one is also based on Safe and Sound by T-Sweezy. I love the song, what can I say. I feel that the title Safe and Sound would've fit more with this one than the other one I wrote but I can't really do anything about that now. Oh well.**

**Disclaimer- I wish I owned this. Like, seriously, who can't agree that Suzanne Collins is an undeniable genius for coming up with this stuff? So complicated and so good it's just… it's beautiful is what it is. A little more fluff would've been nice, am I right? Maybe a little expansion on the 'real or not real' scene at the end of Mockingjay, hmmmm? Anyway, I don't own. I wish, though.**

_Just close your eyes, the sun is going down…_

It was the first time I'd woken up to one of Peeta's nightmares. I knew he got them, of course. We both get them. We'll probably always have them. He told me that they were always about him losing me, but then he'd wake up and find me there and everything would be alright.

But that was before the hijacking.

Now, finally finding his way back into my bed after the war, I see how awful they've become. It was one of those sleepless nights, ones that would never truly go away but were luckily becoming few and far between with Peeta by my side. I'd been laying there, wrapped in his arms, when he'd started screaming.

He was sweating like a fiend and swearing like a sailor as he thrashed around on the bed, only waking up when my frantic shouting and shaky hands cut through his haze. His eyes were unfocused when he came to but he slowly calmed down and diminished into shivering and sobbing in my arms.

It was weird, this change in power. It'd always been him comforting me. But I took the reins, desperate to help him the way he'd always helped me, stroking his hair and whispering comforting words as he rocked back and forth, gripping my hand like a lifeline. He eventually drifted off again, head in my lap, and I stroked his hair as I accepted the fact that there was no way in hell I was falling asleep tonight.

_You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now…_

He was no doubt dreaming about the Capitol. About Snow. About all that they'd done to him, taking his sweet memories of us and turning them into a thing of terror. I don't know what he sees when he remembers them. I can't even begin to imagine. I'd been stung by the tracker jackers, yes, but only twice. I knew the horrifying images and things you think about when infected with their venom. Just those few hours were enough to bring me to the brink of madness. But I'd had the good fortune of letting nature run its course. Peeta hadn't been so lucky. Every time the venom would dissipate, he'd be injected with more, over and over again with no end in sight while being told everything was a lie, all that he remembered wasn't real and being brainwashed into thinking I was a mutt, I was a thing to be feared, a thing to be killed...

_Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound…_

Him and I, in a twisted way, really are perfect for one another. Both broken, torn apart and stitched back together quickly and clumsily, never to be whole again. We'll never be safe. I am the mockingjay. The girl on fire. I can only hold on to the hope that, one day, that fire might burn out.

But I know it won't. How can it? I played the most instrumental part in the most violent rebellion Panem had ever seen. I was a part of not only one but _two_ Hunger Games, forced the Gamemakers hand in changing the rules so they could have a victor in the first, openly defied the government and created the spark that would kill thousands. And I killed the president. No one can let that go. I wouldn't, anyway.

_Don't you dare look out your window, darling everything's on fire…_

And Peeta. The Boy With the Bread. Fire burns bread, you know. How ironic, really. Peeta burned the bread all those years ago to keep me alive. In return, I burned him. I even found myself wishing his death on more than one occasion.

_If we burn you burn with us._ I never dreamed that would include Peeta.

How unfortunate this all turned out to be for him. He loved me for years. He had no clue what that love would cost him. He never could have imagined it would be this, though. His whole family being killed. But he keeps insisting it was worth it. _I_ was worth it.

Highly unlikely. But if that thought keeps him going there's no way in hell I'm going to dispute it.

_The war outside our door keeps raging on…_

The war is over. It's been over for about a year. The Districts are being rebuilt and the government is going through a Def-Con-Three level makeover under president Paylor. All in all, things seem to be going well. Looking up, even.

The physical war is over. But the mental war is raging on.

My mother is burying herself in work over the pain in losing Prim, Gale is burying himself in God only knows what in District 2 over the pain of losing me, Annie is in a constant battle with herself to try and stay sane for her son. Between her previous mental status and the grief of losing Finnick I'm always overly impressed with how great of a mother she is whenever we get more pictures or letters from her. She's stronger than any of us ever gave her credit for.

Haymitch still drinks, but it's one of his lesser evils now that all this is over. The drying-out in District 13 seemed to have a lasting effect because I only find him slobbering drunk a few nights a week now.

It's better than it was, anyway.

But me and Peeta… we'll never be okay. Okay, maybe that's not true. We might be okay. But we'll never be the same.

_Hold on to this lullaby, even when the music's gone…_

Music is back in our lives. I mostly do it for Peeta now, though. Before, in the Capitol, I'd somehow found music as a way to stay sane while planning my suicide after Coin's death. Like I said, I used to rank it up there with hair ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness. But it seems plenty useful now.

Peeta loves to hear me sing. The mockingjays that somehow always manage to find their way to our windows love it, too. Whenever he looks outside and sees them he sits at the kitchen table and orders me to sing. Like my father, they fall silent when they hear me.

But Peeta likes it. It makes him happy. It reminds him of the day he fell in love with me. Who am I to rob him of this one joy in the world?

And, if I'm being honest, I kinda like it, too.

I look down at him now, sleeping soundly under my watchful gaze and fiddling fingers. He looks a lot younger when he sleeps. Much less stressed. Unless, of course, he's having a nightmare. But it doesn't look like he is now, so I take the opportunity and capture this moment in my mind, one of the few moments I feel truly content in our world of hate and monsters.

No, wait. That's not right. There's love, too.

I haven't admitted it to him yet. I haven't fully grasped the concept myself. I mean, me? In love? I'd never thought it possible.

Of course, two years ago, I'd never thought a lot of things possible. Until they were.

Funny how things change.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed at how long it took to realize it. But now that I know, it seems silly that I never did before. Had I always loved the boy with the bread? It seemed like a good possibility.

Peeta stirred under my fingers, his sparkling eyes flickering open in the darkness. He blinked a couple times and I passed my fingers over his lids, shutting them and granting him another shot at happiness.

"Just close your eyes," I sang softly. I saw his smile. "I remember tears streaming down your face when I said I'll never let you go, when all those shadows almost killed your light. I remember you said don't leave me here alone, but all that's dead and gone and passed tonight."

He sighed against my fingertips, relaxing in my lap and letting the lyrics wash over him. "Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound."

It seemed like a very fitting song for us, if I'm being honest. I don't know what it was originally written for, but I'd heard my father sing it and even the mockingjays repeat it in the woods after his death a couple times. It kind of describes the first Games, when Peeta and I were in the cave. How he didn't want me to leave him, how the 'shadows' did, indeed, almost kill him. But the chorus, the 'no one can hurt you now' part… that's true, in a sense. No one can hurt us but ourselves.

I brushed Peeta's hair back and leaned down to kiss his temple, resting my forehead against his. I let his body heat warm me; he loved sleeping with the windows open, even in this cold weather, and I was wearing short sleeves so I was a little chilled.

He shifted, pulling my down next to him and bringing the blanket up to cover us both. His arms encircled me and I snuggled into his chest.

"I love you, Katniss." He whispered, his lips brushing my forehead. Warmth spread through me at the words, the ones I'd heard so many times before yet never had the courage to return. But tonight… something felt different. Some kind of hunger was rising inside of me, the kind I remembered feeling one time before when I kissed him; now, I knew hunger. I knew what starvation felt like. But this kind of hunger was something I'd never felt. It was a hunger I kind of liked.

So I looked up into his blue eyes and pressed my lips to his, feeling the hunger well up inside me in one intense burst. I gasped into his mouth and he gripped my hip hard, breaking away so he could breathe.

"Katniss," he chuckled. "You have no idea the effect you can have."

I grinned because, at that moment, I could_ feel_ the effect I can have. And I liked it.

"Peeta," I murmured, brushing our lips together.

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

I felt him go stiff and I was suddenly scared, scared that Snow had somehow cut together a recording of me saying those words and turning it into some kind of hellish nightmare for him, but instead he sighed in relief, clutching me tighter. "Thank God."

I had to laugh at that.

So, we might never be the same. But we both changed, and we changed together. Somehow, we'll find a way to make it in this new world. We'll find our way back to each other.

Because we're Peeta and Katniss. The boy with the bread and the girl on fire. And even though fire burns bread, in the end the bread is still edible.

And the fire eventually burns out.


End file.
